Troubled Ford to slash even more jobs

By
Euronews

Ford has announced details of a more aggressive and accelerated restructuring cutting its annual costs by about four billion euros by the end of 2008. That includes reducing its management and supervisory staff by around a third. In a video press release, new chief executive, Alan Mulally, said: “The most important thing we do is to size our company, our capacity, to the correct demand and on top of that to continue to invest in the products and services, the cars and trucks, that the customers really, really want.” In terms of turnover last year Ford was the world’s fourth largest carmaker after General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Toyota and above Volkswagen. Ford’s turnover in 2005 was 141 billion euros and currently has 300,000 employees.

The carmaker said it now expects its share of the US market to slide to between 14% and 15% and its US operations will not be profitable before 2009, a year later than originally projected. It will suspend its quarterly share dividend, further reduce the number of vehicles it is building and speed up the introduction of new models. This is Ford’s third restructuring plan in five years. One announced in January – axing up to 30,000 factory workers and closing 14 plants will be speeded up with the target date for its completion brought forward to 2008.